PEPA provides an opportunity for primary health care providers to develop skills in the palliative approach by undertaking a supervised clinical placement of up to four days within a palliative care specialist service (host site) within a metropolitan or larger service.

Placements may incorporate learning within the following environments:

  • inpatient palliative care – to provide experience in the ongoing management of patients, case conferencing and the role of the multidisciplinary team
  • acute hospital consultancy – to provide experience in the management of the patient and family needs during the transition from curative to palliative care and the management of complex acute problems
  • community practice – which can provide experience in management of patient and family needs in the community and the resources and equipment available in the home.

Your participation in PEPA should enable you to:

  • Demonstrate a clear understanding of the principles of palliative care;
  • Identify the needs of palliative care patients;
  • Identify the role of practitioners within your field in managing common problems faced by patients with life-limiting illness and their families;
  • Recognise your own knowledge base/ scope of practice with regard to optimal palliative care provision; and
  • Identify personal coping strategies for effective management of stress related to working in this field.

A key component of the learning will also be developing networks with local palliative care providers that may assist you in your own practice when providing care to people with life-limiting illness.

In addition to the experiential learning in a palliative care specialist service, you will be supported to implement a planned activity within your own workplace within three months of completing the placement.  The planned activity will be shared within the PEPA Community of Practice page within this website.  The sharing of your learning and story is important to inspiring other generalist health care professionals like you to learn more about palliative care to support patients in your care.

Financial support may be available to assist your professional development and you can contact your PEPA team in your state or territory to find out more about support for professional development here – Contact the PEPA Team.